The past decade has witnessed the tremendous scientific and technological potential of nanoscale flexoelectricity in solids. flexoelectric effect describes universal generation electric polarization response to strain gradients could be inversely enhanced at reduced dimensions. Based on this unique scaling effect, shown exciting physical phenomena, promising novel electronic, electromechanical,...

We present ab initio calculations of the longitudinal flexoelectricity for BaTiO(3) and SrTiO(3) using a direct approach. The calculated value for SrTiO(3) agrees with recently reported measurements. For BaTiO(3), however, the theoretical values are smaller than the measured ones; possible reasons for the discrepancy are discussed.

Both outer hair cell electromotility and neurotransmission at the inner hair cell synapse are rapid mechanical events that are synchronized to the hair-cell receptor potential. We analyze whether the forces and potentials resulting from membrane flexoelectricity could affect synaptic vesicle fusion. The results suggest that the coupling of membrane curvature with membrane potential is of suffic...

for an Invited Paper for the MAR09 Meeting of The American Physical Society Flexoelectricity in nanostructures PRADEEP SHARMA, University of Houston Crystalline piezoelectric dielectrics electrically polarize upon application of uniform mechanical strain. Inhomogeneous strain, however, locally breaks inversion symmetry and can potentially polarize even non-piezoelectric (centrosymmetric) dielec...

The bending-induced polarization of barium titanate single crystals has been measured with an aim to elucidate the origin of the large difference between theoretically predicted and experimentally measured flexoelectricity in this material. The results indicate that part of the difference is due to polar regions (short-range order) that exist above T(C) and up to T*≈200-225 °C. Above T*, howeve...